


It Never Rains, but it Pours.

by drainspoon



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Cannibalism, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Everyone Needs A Hug, Everyone is Dead, Gen, Hallucinations, Heavy Angst, Insanity, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Disintegration, Mental Instability, Missing Persons, Rain, Rare Pairings, Self-Sacrifice, Sickness, Starvation, Storm - Freeform, Trapped, a lot of this pops up in way later chapters, and i'll admit, but you don't know which so it's okay, if you have triggers that are related to violence or death don't read, if you're sensitive don't read, just basically, some of them spoil the endings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26013547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drainspoon/pseuds/drainspoon
Summary: The onset of the fog was as quick as a hare, slinking it's way through the world and encasing everything in a heavy, damp null. Xisuma had announced that no one was to leave their homes just a few days later, and everyone was enclosed in their bases. Stuck with whomever happened to be there at the time, or the lack thereof, permanently.One can only handle isolation for so long, and being trapped with the same person for weeks upon end can take a toll on your stability... It's only a matter of time until someone snaps.(ON HOLD! motivation went 📉)
Relationships: Iskall & Bdubs, Joe Hills/John | BdoubleO100, Joe/Bdubs, Viktor | Iskall & John | BdoubleO100, Xisumavoid & GoodTimesWithScar, relationships will be added as they are included
Comments: 9
Kudos: 49





	1. Light a Fire They Can't Put Out

The rain thundered on the tiles of the deceptively young building, the pitter patter of droplets on the rooftop having faded to idle storm in a matter of hours since its beginning. Mist had gathered up on the ground, shrouding the world in a dusted gray darkness against the black, star-studded sky to the point that, even enclosed within the walls of the winery, Joe could feel the gloom at full force. 

His eyes lingered over the faint traces of land outside his window pane and through the fog, body feeling frozen in the lowly isolated home he'd created for himself. In the pursuit of aesthetic, he'd doomed himself for this occasion, and now all he had left to do was dwell in his misery, even cloaked in the covers of his bed, which sat abandoned since the admin of their server had informed them of the glitch. Said glitch made the appliances virtually useless, save for appearances and naps that failed to pass the time. And so he was forced to lie in his discomfort, surrounded in the damp depression that was his home.

...Oh, how he wished Bdubs was by his side.

The man had wove his way into his life, intertwining their paths until it was just second nature to be together, the pair becoming practically inseparable until the love they shared had bubbled up oh so naturally into their relationship. Only a few days after they'd finally made their affection official had the onset of the storm set on. Xisuma had set out the order that no one was to attempt traveling and to be extremely cautious when continuing builds outdoors, and they were practically a world apart in an instant.

As much as he desperately denied it, the distance was getting to him. They spoke to each other less and less as the weeks droned on, their private messages falling silent, dusting over as they were dead for days, only reviving for short, basic conversations containing nothing more than small talk you make with a stranger. He could feel them drifting apart, and there was nothing he could do to stop its descent.

Releasing a heavy sigh, Joe allowed his mind to drift into the night, lids heavy as he stared into the depths of the dark. His achy bones felt frozen, his entire body chilled deep down in his core, having gotten so used to the iceberg that was himself that the chattering had stopped completely. Exhaustion overwhelmed him, his eyes shutting suddenly and his head swinging forwards and thumping against the glass in an unexpected movement that ignited vicious cracking in his joints. 

The warm glow of his candle illuminated his body as he thudded against the frame, jittering the loose boards and knocking the porcelain platter he used as a wax guard from the sill. The porcelain clattered to the floor, shattering to bits as the candle landed with a small splat against the ground as it rolled, bursting a piece of cloth it encountered in vicious flames. The room of the winery was reduced to ashes in a matter of minutes, the glimmer of the fire unseen behind the curtains of fog, shrouding the absence of the build from his fellow hermits continually in the storm. There was no one to save him, and Joe... 

Joe didn't wake up in time to quell the flames. 


	2. It Comes With Ease

The idle drone of the droplets outside drummed endlessly behind the bark, splattering onto the ground in the open center of the tree and accumulating a deep puddle of water where Iskall's diamond pile had once been. Though it had been moved to one of the rooms on the staircase not long before the storm began, occasionally they would forget that the beacons and treasures were gone and have tiny bursts of panic for the items. They couldn't even check on them anymore without being soaked in a matter of seconds, so they could hardly even move around the trunk of their base.

But there was something even _worse_ than the fact that they were trapped or that their beloved diamonds and treasures were forever out of reach. Something they couldn't escape. An insufferable, disgusting, diorite-loving— _Bdoubleo_.

It was a terrible coincidence that made Bdubs drop by. Iskall had been trying to do him a favor by taking all of his disgusting bird poop off his hands. They'd prepped it all in a mound of shulker boxes to burn when Bdubs had shown up, yelling at them for taking all of his supposed 'building supplies'—as if diorite could ever be building supplies! Nevertheless, they'd been in the heated midst of their argument when both of them were pinged on their communicators for a message from the admin telling everyone to get to the nearest building and stay there, and not to travel or attempt to leave your homes for an undetermined amount of time.

And so they were trapped together.

It had already been a few weeks, and Bdubs was annoying as ever, insisting that they return his blocks even though he couldn't use them. So, of course, they burned the diorite-tainted shulker boxes in front of his face and now he wouldn't talk to them anymore. They had to admit... They kind of regretted it. Not the cleansing the world of bird poop, that was something they did everyday without fail and they would never stop, but a small part of them told them that they shouldn't have messed with _his_ diorite. If they were stuck together, they should be friends, no?

“Bdubs?” Iskall called out, reaching a hand out and tapping the man's shoulder. Bdubs twisted his upper body around, looking up at the standing enby from his position on the floor with a frown. He released a grumble that they didn't understand, but they took it as a 'go ahead and keep talking' even though he turned away, so they flopped down onto their knees. After a moment's hesitation, they continued, “... I'm sorry.” Bdubs turned to face them, eyes wide. “I should not have burned all your diorite. You probably spent a very long time gathering all of it, so I'm sorry.”

He swiveled around, now facing them. “Are you really sorry?” 

“Yes!”

He pursed his lips, making a disgruntled face, depleting their hope of forgiveness by the second. Suddenly, he burst into a grin, tackling Iskall in a hug as he exclaimed, “Its okay, I forgive you!” They bubbled with laughter as they hugged, arms entangled together, gratefulness seeping through Iskall's every move. For once, despite the thunder outside, the inside of the tree was... calm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quite the change from chapter one, hm? don't worry...
> 
> things will get worse


	3. Nothing Makes a Room Emptier

Cleo was fine. Food was an unnecessary pleasantry, water was nothing to her shut down system, and sleep didn't effect her brittle body in the slightest. But... Talking to the decapitated heads of the corpses of slain creatures? Not an ideal pass time. But it was her only way to keep that rotten part of her brain from capturing the threads of her sanity of which she clung to. Even in his solitude, Joe had fallen silent, Stress was always distracted either by Ren, and very rarely did anyone respond to her messages save for the occasional conversation.

In the end, she was alone, and all that was left was her, her heads, and the thunder outside.

And she was completely fine. And she did not spend hours staring at her communicator only to break down because it never buzzed once. And she did not have to fight back sobs doing usual tasks on the daily from feelings that she could hardly differentiate from pain. And she did not feel like throwing up what would surely be purely stomach acid because she hadn't eaten in who knows how long. She was fine! Absolutely fine! 

Slumped against the chests of her head storage system, the zombie coughed out a mixture of a wheeze and a dry laugh. “Tooootally fine. Yep. Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine,” she cocked her neck to a villager head by her side, forcing up a grin despite the aching of her muscles at the tug of her cheeks. “You think I'm fine, don't you? You'd be right, 'cuz I'm fine.” she pat the corpse's head, lurching herself onto her feet in an motion that resembled a feral zombie's too much for her liking. “...'m fine.” in all technicality, she was okay, so she clung to that notion because god knows if she accepted the aching, lingering agony she resided in on a consistent and constant basis—she might as well die.

The loneliness wasn't even the tip of the ice berg. As much as it pained cleo to think of it, and knowing she was guilty of it herself, she knew that, in hermitcraft, if you were forgotten...You stayed forgotten. You were left to your own devices, not spoken to without prompting or purpose. You could leave at any time and very rarely would someone comment on your disappearance. If someone no longer crossed your mind, there was a doubt they ever would again. It was like a curse on hermitcraft. One that everyone was very much aware of. Never be forgotten, because to be forgotten is worse than being dead. 

So many fellow hermits she could just barely grasp the names of an despite whatever level of prominence they'd had in their prime. Sl1pg8r, Pungence, Zueljin... She could count them on her fingers, but she could hardly remember their face. Even reassured that she'd forever be known, when Joe stopped responding, she couldn't deny the pit that formed in her stomach. She'd be one of many, a number, a statistic.

And she would be forgotten.

The end. No more Cleo.

...

So, yeah.

Maybe she wasn't fine.


	4. Behave like the Rain and Fall for Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the (really) late chapter! technical difficulties didn't let me work on thursday or friday, and i was distracted by my mom on saturday. also really short because, again, technical difficulties.

He should've listened to his gut. He should've. There was no question about it. 

Maybe, if he'd listened when it screamed at him not to visit Scar, he wouldn't be stuck with the mayor of hermitcraft in one of the very few covered locations within the Scarx facilities. Maybe, if he'd listened when it howled to get out of the air and back on the ground, he wouldn't be awkwardly sitting with his face on the wall as said mayor changed out of soaked clothes. Maybe, if he'd listened when he could see the drill over the horizon, he wouldn't be listening to pounding rain outside the safety of his own prepped-for-this-occasion base.

...Maybe, if he listened to his gut, Scar wouldn't have reached out with his warm hands and touched his shoulder, prompting him to turn around and offering him that awkward, overly cheery smile that bubbled up security in his chest. Maybe Scar wouldn't have flopped against the wall and stretched out comfortably, patting his lap for Jellie to scramble over into his arms, and igniting that comforting energy that just radiated when the pair were together, snuffling his panic for just a bit.

...Alright, so he was a bit glad that he didn't listen to his gut.

Xisuma felt his fingers drawing through the strands of Scar's well-kept hair, shiny and soft just like the rest of the man. It made him smile through the spikes of horror that hit him every time the thunder broke up the idle drone and reminded him that the storm was just outside the walls of Scarx, and the feeling of Jellie's fur on his thigh kept him semi-grounded. 

The mayor leaned against his chest, propped up against the side of his body with one of X's arms looped around his frame, head tilted on top of the foot-shorter man, eyes miraculously shut despite the (metaphorical) screaming outdoors. He both wished Scar was awake to comfort him and dreaded the idea that one of his server members might ever see his fear, no matter how close they might be to one another. Unexpected tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, but with no hands free to wipe them away he had no choice but to let them fall undisturbed.

He let his eyes slip shut in a vague attempt at quelling his cries. They weren't shut for long, but in the moment that his eye lids were snapped over his eyes, he failed to see the red flash on the screen of his communicator, nor the death message shown only to him.

<Joehills went up in flames.>


	5. The Second We Are Born

his hands clutched his sides, digging into the raging agony that was his stomach, tightened helplessly around his belly in a vain attempt at soothing the screaming inside his organ. he could feel a ringing sense of upcoming bile in the low of his throat, that tempted him to vomit out food he didn't have, spilling stomach acid past his lips and lighting his innards ablaze. _no, no xb you have to keep it down, you can't waste anything. just one more day. one more day._

his broken body creaked as he rocked in his place, voice hoarse and mouth dry to the bone. he felt weak and frail, as though weights wrapped around every joint and we're constantly working against his movements to flatten him against the floor to die. he felt ill, and dirty, like a film of dirt and grime coated his entire frame, but he couldn't waste any water to bathe. he just couldn't. 

under his breath, heard in his ears just barely over the rumbling blitz, he reminded himself: “ _a human can go without food for about thirty to forty days, but would typically only last three to four days without water. severe symptoms of starvation set in at around the thirty-fifth day, and death can occur at around forty-five to sixty-one days._ ”

he'd made sure to familiarize himself with starvation and dehydration symptoms and general guidelines as to how long he could last when he'd decided to move so far from his fellow hermits. just in case. it was originally just a reminder for if he ever ran out of food, to know how long he would have till he had to make it to the mainlands, as well as to know a general number of days he should stock up for when he gathers resources. nowadays , after the storm made its way to him, it was a guide to how long he'd survive.

it was a countdown to his death.

every living second was agony, and he wanted to sleep the days away. his eyes longed to slip shut and drift away, but he feared that the second his world went dark it would never return again. he didn't want to die. he didn't want to die. he doesn't want to die.

unfortunately...

one doesn't have a choice in the matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short because i wasn't feeling too well today so i just wrapped up the writing i'd finished a while back--promise to get back in the groove with longer chapters again soon


End file.
